Praj Industries Brings New Biotechnology by Producing “Bio-bitumen”

One of India’s proficient biotechnology firms, Praj Industries today announced that it has achieved a milestone in innovation technologies by producing a Bio-bitumen based on lignin.

As per the firm’s claim, Praj’s Bio-bitumen samples processed from purified Lignin, as a part of their flagship CHAPLIN program, have been approved by the Netherlands-based Circular Biobased Delta (CBBD), one of Europe’s premier consortia to promote bio-economy. Under its flagship program CHAPLIN, it endeavors the development and commercialization of Bio-bitumen as a binder for use in asphalt to improve the greening approach in road construction while reducing CO2 intensity.

Lignin is one of the co-products resulting from the 2nd generation Ethanol plants (produced by the fermentation of sugars obtained from the hydrolysis of polysaccharides), paper making, and also from Compressed Bio-Gas plants.

However, Bitumen is a black viscous mixture of hydrocarbons produced by fractionation of crude oil and has a broad range of applications in road construction and roofing as a binder.

Speaking of the achievement, the Founder Chairman of Praj, Dr. Pramod Chaudhari stated, “We are delighted to receive a certificate of approval from Circular Biobased Delta for Bio-bitumen samples produced by deploying our proprietary process technology. We understand that Praj is the first Asian company to have developed Bio-bitumen that has the potential to partially replace bitumen from fossil resources.”

Praj has developed an advanced process (under patenting) to convert the crude lignin into Bio-bitumen which has the potential to replace this fossil-based bitumen and offer eco-friendly green bitumen. The binding and viscoelastic property of Bio-bitumen makes it useful for applications in asphalt.

“Bio-bitumen is poised to play a significant role as road construction material while curbing CO2 emissions and boosting the Bio-economy. This reaffirms our strong belief in innovation and technology leadership in the industrial biotech space globally,” Dr. Pramod added.

Praj had provided Bio-bitumen samples processed from Rice and Wheat Straw as feedstock in their 2G Biorefinery Demo plant in India to CBBD for testing and evaluation. After some evaluation and studies, CBBD has approved Praj’s Bio-bitumen sample for scale-up in Asphalt on a Dutch test strip on the road.

“We are very positive about the results of Praj’s Bio-bitumen samples based on our lab trials. We firmly believe the increasing value for lignin-derived Bio-bitumen will allow improving the biobased business and stimulate economic activities such as processing of Agri residues& its applications, biorefineries, and Bio-bitumen,” says Dr. Ir. Willem L. Sederel, Chairman of CBBD.